Category: Grr

A lot’s happened since I last blogged. As always, as soon as I’d sit down in front of the computer to try and update, I’d remember I had to do something else. So, a summary (which will be long anyway):

Wednesday: Took our Final Exam on Access. I think we started it at 9:00 (or was it 8:30?) and I finished by 10:30. I thought I’d done okay, since it was a pretty difficult exam. I pulled my Harry Potter book out of my backpack and waited for the girls. To make a long story short, I heard sniffing coming from behind me, slamming of books, and at around 11, Ricci came up next to me and told me she was done. She wasn’t and was clearly upset. she was having trouble with her exam and so was Mayra. Their Relationships just weren’t working and that’s what makes the queries, reports and forms work. Poor Lucy’s database kept messing up so she lost her report and form, which I’d clearly seen her finish. After Mrs. C-R and I talked to Ricci in the bathroom, she composed herself and came back to the class to try again. After a while, I started panicking because I thought I’d gone through the exam too fast and *had* to have messed up somewhere.

We got our Exams back a few (painstaking) days later and I got a 96. I usually cry and throw fits if my grade’s anything less than a 98, but I thankfully accepted the grade–I thought I was going to do much worse!

We went to pick Mom up after school and then went grocery shopping that afternoon with Ricci. Dropped Ricci off, came home and took Mom to the Housing Authority to get her an application. The lady at the window told us we could fill out the application, but they wouldn’t be helping anyone till next year, maybe, because they were only accepting people from Louisiana. Just our luck. Mario had stayed home to watch Jaylen while John did his observation and picked Eenan up, too. Mario took a nap while I dropped Mom off, which I was really annoyed about since I hate driving over there alone.

John went in for his observation that morning and to his last class that night. He’s officially a substitute teacher now . Next on his list: his driver’s license.

Thursday: Can’t remember much from that day except that by the end of the day I was exhausted. I’d even forgotten an appointment I’d had that afternoon.

Friday: Was falling asleep in class…

(…Cntd. @ 6:42pm from home…)

Anyway, I was falling asleep in class so I really wasn’t “aware” of what we were learning in Chapter 2. Before we left class Mrs. C-R lets us know we’re having a quiz on Monday, so we might like to study. I totally forgot about this during the weekend.

After school Ricci and I met Mary at Target, where she was picking out her and my gift for Belinda, Ricci’s daughter. I got her a little outfit, so we took it with us so Ricci could dress her up before the party. I took Ricci to get a few things for the party (the piñata down Conway, a few more goodies from H-E-B) and then we went to her house where I’d help her with a few things. We ate lunch (menudo that her grandma made, yum!), and then went outside to find a huge jug for the tea they’d be making. We spent so much time looking for it that I didn’t get to help her with anything else since I needed to pick Eenan up. I picked the kids up, came home, ironed all our clothes and then went back to help her a bit. They sent me to the store to get forks and as soon as I’d gotten back with them Mary called that she was home and ready. Came back, picked her and Sammy and Brandon up and we went back to Ricci’s.

It was a nice party. There were lots of kids there and they all got along really well with Eenan and Jaylen, especially Jaclyn and Natasha, Ricci’s sister and cousin, respectively. Mayra went for a little while with her little girl, Sharlyze, and it was the cutest thing when Belinda and Sharlyze held hands and walked into the dining room together. I got to meet Mayra’s sister and mom, who are both really sweet.

The kids hit the piñata, got candies when it broke open, and then they got candy bags. We sang Happy Birthday to Belinda and ate cake and then we came home.

Saturday: Mary treated us (John included) to Peter Piper for lunch. The kids had so much fun. Mary took Eenan and I took Jaylen and they played the usual games. They both really like skee ball, this other one where you slowly roll a ball to a different colored slot each time, and one where they throw ping pong balls into the bucket that lights up. They got a pretty good amount of tickets, got their prizes and then we got there just in time to eat pizza.

We watched Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit, which was totally much cuter and funnier than I thought it would be. John was in a huff and was scowling the whole time because he couldn’t believe that I was making him watch that “stupid cartoon”, but he was laughing his ass off the whole time. The kids loved it; they thought it was hilarious.

We went to pick Mom up after that and then went to JCPenny, where she was taking John shopping for “professional clothing”. He found 3 shirts and 1 pair of slacks; he actually looks pretty decent when he’s not wearing baggy clothes.

We went to see Gramma after that. We spent time joking around with her and talking about our week. Mary was picked up by Tommy and Yadira while we were there since she was tired. Eenan, who isn’t much of a shopper (just like his father), left with Mary. Mom, John, Jaylen and I went to Target after that since we had time to kill before Mario needed to be picked up.

Or so we thought.

As soon as we got to the parking lot of Target, Mario called and said he was out–40 minutes earlier than what he initially thought. I told him we’d just gotten there–that we’d be over there in 20 minutes. We went around looking for storage boxes and a garment rack for John’s stuff (since his crap’s strewn all over my living room) and checked out the Halloween stuff. Mom got Jaylen a Ninja Turtle costume, some sais and a double-ended sword for Eenan’s ninja costume (that Andy’d bought for him). By the time we got in line at the check out, we’d already been there 40 minutes . Needless to say, I was in a hurry to get to Mario’s workplace since I didn’t feel like being yelled at. I even ran one of those “yield on green to oncoming traffic” signals and could have possibly killed us all. I was so tired my heart didn’t even start racing, as it usually does when I encounter a near-death experience (which are usually not brought on by me, surprisingly). Thinking of it now, it was the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever done while driving. John yelled out, “The OTHER time, you didn’t see the stop sign. THIS TIME, you didn’t even CARE!”

It’s funny to me now, but it was so, so wrong of me. .

We hadn’t eaten since before noon, so mom asked if we’d like to get a bite to eat. We went to this taqueria that Mario had been wanting to go to. He ordered what he’d been craving: tripa tacos and a hotdog wrapped in bacon with pico de gallo in it. Mom and I got steak tacos (which they make just like they do in Mexico!), John got a bacon hotdog and the kids got regular hot dogs. The food was delicious—they even gave us complementary beans, which were the best I’ve ever tasted.

We dropped Mom off after that and made the long commute home. When we finally got home, I helped John set up his garment rack. We hung all the clothes on it and what happens? The darn thing falls apart! We took everything off of it, wheeled it into our bedroom and he started hanging all his clothes on it again. Mario and I lay on the bed and watched John have his crisis with the rack. It was the most hilarious thing I’d seen all day–even funnier than Wallace and Grommit. I was so exhausted that night that I fell asleep right there, in the clothes I was wearing. I didn’t even get to go to Ricci’s second party for Belinda, which was at her ex-in-laws’ house. I was hoping we’d be home much earlier, but I sort of had a feeling that with everything we had to do, we wouldn’t make it.

Sunday: Spent the day cleaning and reading. Took a shower mid-afternoon and then went with Mary, Elda, Sammy, Brandon, Angela, Eenan and Jaylen to the Jamaica, which is a festival/fair type thing that was hosted by the church. They have little games and lots of food. The kids got on the moon jump (which took a total of 40 minutes to stand in line and then have them jump in), played a few little games and we ate nachos and grape soda. All in all, it was a fun night. Yazmin was at the sponge throw getting, er, sponged LOL, and I also saw Ricci’s little sister and her cousin.

Spoke to Ricci that night and apologized for not making it to Belinda’s party. She asked if I’d studied for the quiz on Monday and of course I hadn’t. I’d totally forgotten about the quiz!

Monday: Was relieved to find out Mrs. C-R was giving us 30 minutes to study. I read through the chapter (which was really long) really quick and memorized the key terms. When we got the quiz I jotted down the first thing that came to my head and I was certain I’d gotten everything wrong. To my surprise, I managed to get a 98! .

I went to make Mom’s storage unit payment after school (and got $10 back, woo! Gas money!) and then picked up some cough medicine for Eenan and a few things for Mary. I only found one single brand of medicine, which is generic. What ever happened to the Triaminic soft chews and tongue tape? Was that forward I received actually true? They really did get rid of all the kids’ cough/cold meds?

And now I’m here, stuffing my face with popcorn and waiting to make dinner (should have waited on the popcorn). I tried winning the 30,000 from Wild 104 today but of course I never got through. Well, I did get through once, and then the operator came on to tell me I hadn’t gotten through after all. Grr.

Maybe next time . Oh the things I could do with that money!

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I should have known my concerns over who’d watch Jaylen in certain situations would come back to haunt me. Tomorrow, for example, John needs to go into Eenan’s school at 8am to observe 3 classes for his substitute teacher course. He (nor I) hadn’t thought of who’d watch Jaylen when John needed to get stuff like this done. Mario ended up having to trade his day off (Friday) with another guy to get tomorrow off.

I don’t want to discourage John, or stop him from doing something good for himself but I still wish he’d told me he was going to want to go to school when I was first making arrangements back in July. I could have just put Jaylen into Head Start, whether I liked it or not (I still don’t trust those people to watch my kid). Now it’s too late and we probably don’t even qualify (our income’s “too high”, ha!).

I had my hopes set on Mary’s empty apartment staying, well, empty, and mom moving in there if they ever accepted us into the CCMS program (and then we could try and get her into housing and John wouldn’t have to sleep on our uncomfortable futon–he could move back in with Mom). Well, I called CCMS today and the lady told me something about a manual list, so she’d get back to me. I gave her my cell number and she called while I was picking Eenan up. She said she had to put me into the system since I was on a written waiting list. I thought, ‘What? Didn’t they tell me 2 months ago I was added to the system?’ I asked her when I should call back and she said in another month. WTF? I’m going to be done with school by the time they decide to help me!

By the time I do get Mom into that program (again, IF we qualify–they asked if we received food stamps and TANF and we don’t, blah) Mary’s apartment will probably already be rented out to someone else.

Another thing that makes my stomach flip everytime I think about it is next year. What am I going to do when I start working after I graduate? I DO plan to work as soon as I graduate, since they help with job placement and all. What if Jaylen doesn’t qualify to get into Pre-K? If he doesn’t qualify for Pre-K, then he definitely won’t qualify for Head Start. Who will watch him? And if he does go to Pre-K, it’s only half a day, who will stay with him or pick him up? I try not to think of these things because I worry myself into a headache, but it’s inevitable. I have to think of it sometime and it’s just depressing. I hate to think I won’t be able to continue with my career because it seems that nobody (meaning the government or state programs) want to help us out! There’s no one in my family who can help us because everyone works or goes to school. All we need is just a little help to get us both on our feet.

Dreams of my little home just keep slipping further and further out of my grasp . That’s what I get for thinking ahead and making plans.

I hate to sound all depressing and pessimistic, but it gets really, really hard sometimes.

One of the only good things to happen today was that we got our Form Exams back and I got a hundred on it. Mrs. C-R usually leaves a nice note on our papers (like “Great job! Awesome job!”) and today she left:

Yajaira,
Awesome work! Keep it up! You have a lot of potential :)!

I felt giddy and I could feel my face beaming the rest of the day.

Oh, and Mario and I realized people still find us attractive, other than ourselves LOL. A guy at school makes it a point to catch my attention at least once a day (I really don’t think he knows I’m married, happily at that) and Mario was told that a girl that used to work with him was apparently “totally crazy about him”. When he slipped into bed beside me last night and laid on my shoulder to cuddle before we fell asleep, we discussed that I need to keep him locked in the bathroom, to keep women away from him. He didn’t think it was such a good idea .

I guess that’s it. I should get started on dinner, it’s getting late.

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I’m feeling this omnipresent comfort; it’s been raining all afternoon, the sky is overcast and the sun’s hiding, which has made the air inside the house nice, crisp and cool–something we haven’t felt, well, all summer. I love when the weather’s like this . I’m going to blog about this weekend and then I’m jumping into bed and reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (I swear, it feels like I’m never going to finish that book!)

We rented movies on Friday night (The Longest Yard, Robots, The Ring 2) which was quite relaxing. Mario left when The Longest Yard was almost over, which was the first movie we watched, since Noelia called and asked him to drop some stuff off for her. Since he was already over there he went over to Jorge’s. He called when he was on his way and told me how Jorge and Hiram had been at a convenience store near Jorge’s house before Mario got there and the store was surrounded in cop cars. A federal prisoner had escaped from authorities while at the hospital, hijacked a woman’s car (who had her 4 children with her) and dumped them at the convenience store they were at just minutes before Jorge and Hiram arrived. His home is near Jorge’s so that’s why he drove there. There were helicopters (one of which landed on the empty lot next to Jorge’s house), cop cars, Border Patrol, State Troopers, etc, that equaled to over 24 vehicles. It’s Monday and the guy’s still on the loose. That’s really unsettling .

I spent Saturday cleaning and reading as I planned. Mario and I got into a little argument about spending money that night. Well, I can’t really say we argued, since we peacefully hung up the phone and didn’t speak to each other till he woke up at noon on Sunday.

We made up (while still throwing in a few sarcastic remarks to each other throughout the day) and then we went grocery shopping. The boys we delightfully well-behaved the whole time we were there. We weren’t there long; the store was sardined with people and I felt claustrophobic and hot, which made me sweat buckets and oh, how I hate sweating. Mario and I split the grocery list, each took a child, and dashed through the store. We need to do that more often; we got done really fast!

Ricci got here early this morning and was really flustered. She had a crazy weekend and went to sleep late so she forgot a dozen things she needed to do. She didn’t even come over to finish up her Form assignment.

Things were pretty cool at school. We learned how to customize Reports now. We’ll be taking our Final Exam on Wednesday. We’re not getting a written test this time, just a project (which will probably be a whole Database with Tables, Queries, Forms and Reports *bites nails*). It was great talking with the girls. Lucy was back to her old self, so that was cool. It was weird that she was so down last week. We still don’t know what was behind her bleakness . Every day I realize how much I actually have in common with Mayra. I’m so glad I have them all as friends .

Ricci and Mayra treated Lucy and I to lunch at Jack In The Box. On the way there (which is less than a block away from school) I almost hit two people. My mind was totally on the road; I was paying attention. But for some reason I kept making stupid mistakes! I yelled out, “Oh my GOD! What’s wrong with me??”, and Ricci said, “Don’t worry dude, it’s because you’re with me. My whole day’s been backwards, remember?” I quickly thought to myself, ‘Don’t say that, we still have to drive home and I don’t want to mess up again!’

After we ate, it started raining. I had to drive in the pouring rain for the second time ever and it still scares me. We stopped at the Post Office, then I drove her to her ex’s house to drop something off and she tells me this guy who’d been spying on us was there. He lives diagonally from my house and watches everything Ricci does (which means he watches where I go, and that seriously creeps me out) then gives a detailed report about her whereabouts to her ex. I really hope he stops that. He has no right and he LOOKS like a huge, scary man.

I dropped Ricci off, came home, left with John and Jaylen to the bank to cash some checks for Mary, drove John to Human Resources at the school because he needed some info for his substituting class. We were barely in there for 5 minutes and it started to pour again. There wasn’t even the light, drizzling that warns you, it just started pelting down like crazy. By the time we reached the car in the parking lot we were soaked from top to bottom. I was so mad. I had to rip my beautiful, pink cell phone case off the phone to quickly dry it up (I had to use a wrist brace Mario had shoved between the seats to dry it since there was NOTHING else). My glasses were all smudgy so I couldn’t see—it was a disaster. We came home and changed clothes (poor Jaylen wrapped himself in a towel and blanket) and then went back to get in line to pick Eenan up. He did well at school and didn’t give me any trouble while he was doing his homework so that brightened up my afternoon a bit, at least.

And now I must leave my comfy computer chair and Hello Kitty throw blanket to make some dinner for the family. It’s taken me forever to type up this entry so, so much for reading in bed. Blah, I never know what to cook anymore. If anyone’s got any good recipes, please, I beg you, help meee!

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